VIDEO: Chairman Price on the Principles of Health Care

August 16, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier this summer House Republicans unveiled A Better Way – a bold policy agenda to address the nation’s biggest challenges. Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, M.D. (GA-06) released the first in a series of videos focused on the Better Way plan to get rid of Obamacare and advance patient-centered health care solutions. We begin with the principles of health care:

Accessibility

Affordability

Quality

Innovation

Choices

As Chairman Price notes, each of these principles are being harmed by the current health care system in very real ways that affect patients, their families, and the physicians who care for them.

On Accessibility:

“…the narrowing of the networks and the inability to see the doctor that you want to see because of the health plan. That means accessibility is diminished; accessibility is decreased.”

On Affordability:

“The prices aren’t coming down. The prices are, in fact, going up, and people are having higher premiums and higher deductibles.”

On Quality:

“I used to practice orthopaedic surgery, and when I talk to my former colleagues what they tell me is that they’re often times not able to provide the care that they believe is appropriate for their patient. That’s not because they have forgotten how to do it. It’s because they are not allowed to…”

On Innovation:

“Right now, in so many ways, because of the bureaucracy coming out of Washington, [innovators] are punished or they’re disincentivized from creating that new and better thing that will incredibly increase the quality of care that’s being able to be practiced in this nation.”

On Choices:

“We heard that if you like your doctor, you could keep him or her; if you like your plan, you could keep it. The fact of the matter is that’s not true.”

In short: “Our health care system right now violates each and every one of those principles.”

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